Crackdown on inmates using mobiles in prison
Recent examples of the illegal use of mobile phones include the murder of 19-year-old gang leader Liam Smith in 2007 after he visited a friend in Altcourse prison, Liverpool.
In the same prison this year a phone was seized from Rajib Khan, who was suspected of using it to radicalise other inmates.
Liverpudlian George Moon was convicted of smuggling cocaine in 2009, which he organised using a mobile phone while he was locked up in Lindholme prison, Doncaster.
And in 2015 Carlos Boente was convicted of stalking a teenage mother using a mobile phone while serving a sentence at Birmingham jail.
In July this year it also was revealed that prisoners at Gartree in Leicestershire were using mobile devices to watch porn.
Former minister Ms McVey introduced her Bill to plug a loophole in the 2006 Wireless Telegraphy Act, which makes it illegal to block the use of mobile phones in prisons.
Ministers have made it clear that they will back the Bill, which is due to be debated on December 1. Last night Ms McVey said: “The number of illicit phones found in prisons is increasing dramatically, despite best efforts by prison officers and governors to stop them. Mobile phones are used by prisoners to conduct criminal activity from behind bars and blocking the mobile phone signal is the only guaranteed way to stop this.
“Any contact prisoners want to make with relatives or loved ones should be done through legitimate and legal means. A mobile phone is not needed.” HMP Birmingham from where one prisoner used a mobile to stalk a woman